Broken Arrow Band Wins National Competition

It's called the "Super Bowl" of high school marching bands and this year, for the first time ever, an Oklahoma school brought home the trophy. <br/><br/>Nearly 100 of the nation's top bands met

Monday, November 13th 2006, 8:44 am

By: News On 6

It's called the "Super Bowl" of high school marching bands and this year, for the first time ever, an Oklahoma school brought home the trophy.

Nearly 100 of the nation's top bands met at the Bands of America Grand Nationals in Indianapolis. When it came down to number one, the 'Pride of Broken Arrow' led the pack.

News on 6 reporter Heather Lewin says Broken Arrow High School band members still can't believe it really happened.

Broken Arrowâ€™s supervisor of instrumental music Scott Tomlinson: "It was just incredibly exciting. Never, ever, ever dreamed that this would happen." Drum major Josh Young: "the thought of that didn't even cross my mind." The band started working on this performance even before last year's season ended. They knew they were good, but they had no idea how far it would take them. Scott Tomlinson: "We just wanted to make finals."

They gave it all in front of a crowd of 40,000. For the Broken Arrow band known as "the Pride," it was the performance of a lifetime. Josh Young: â€œIf we got 12th with that show I still would've been on cloud 9." Scott Tomlinson: "They started calling off number 12 and we thought great, we've been 12 twice in finals. Then they called off 11, great we're gonna be higher than 11th, we've been 11th once."

As the list continued, Tomlinson thought maybe there had been a mistake and Broken Arrow was forgotten, then they realized they were number one. "I don't think we heard anything else. We were just jumping up and down and screaming and crying and the kids were doing the same thing."

Josh Young hasn't taken off his medal since the ceremony.